LandMakers 3D Printer Project

President Obama, the Harvard Business Review, and Forbes have identified 3D printing as the new industrial revolution that will change the world. The purpose of the LandMakers project is to procure a 3D printer and explore its pedagogical applications for students and faculty at Landmark College.

3D printing technology was featured by several presenters at the EDUCAUSE ELI conference held in New Orleans, La., in February 2014. Several presentations at the conference highlighted 3D printing’s many pedagogical applications in fields beyond engineering, including science, math, art, and business. As invited presenters at the EDUCAUSE conference, Dr. Ibrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki and Dr. Michelle Bower got a firsthand demonstration of the capabilities of this technology.

The MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D printer that we have selected will offer Landmark College faculty access to an emerging innovative tool that can create custom pedagogical manipulatives for classroom use while at the same time providing students with new ways of expressing their creativity. The cost of 3D printers has dropped dramatically in the last few years, while at the same time, printer quality has improved significantly--making this the right time to explore the use of this technology to support students who learn differently.